Glossary of Terms

A

Actions Committee #

Formerly the Logistics Committee, the Actions Committee proposes actions to the floor and plans the logistics of those actions. For a large action like Target City Hall, there is a subset of people from the Actions Committee who are tasked with the lead work.

Members: Gary Adler · Raffi Babakhairian · Bill Bahlman · Gregg Bordowitz · Steven Cordova · Spencer Cox · Tony Davis · Joe Ferrari · Garance Franke-Ruta · Jean Elizabeth Glass · Saul Kanowitz · Alan Klein (current chair) · George Kontanis · Kayeton Kurowski · Barry Lapidus · David Liebhart · Donn Maffetore · Andrew Miller · Scott Olmstead · Duncan Osborne · Tim Powers · Russell Pritchard · Adam Rolston · Michael Savino · Shawn Slutsky · Stephen Spinella · Tom Starace · Doug Warn

Affinity Groups #

Affinity groups are sub-groups of 5–20 people that demonstrate together at actions. Some have stayed together for years and meet often outside of the main ACT UP meetings, and some form just for specific actions. The main existing ACT UP affinity groups at the time of the March 13, 1989 meeting are: Bored of Ed, The Box Tops, The Candelabras, Delta Queens, La Cocina, Seeing Red, Surrender Dorothy, Wave 3.

B

Bored of Ed #

Bored of Ed is an ACT UP affinity group that is just forming for the Target City Hall action (the group's name is a play on the name of Mayor Ed Koch). Members should gather together in the half hour before the start of the meeting to discuss their plans for Target City Hall.

Members: Amy Bauer · Alexis Danzig · John Goodman · Brent Nicholson Earle · Jose Fidelino · Tom Keane · Tracey Litt · Kiki Mason · Stacey Mink · Donna Minkowitz · John O'Leary · James Revson · Rolf Sjogren · Gary Strum · Polly Thistlethwaite · Mickey Wheatley · Dan Williams

Bowers v. Hardwick #

This was a Supreme Court decision in 1986 that upheld the rights of states to criminalize gay sex between consenting adults. The decision sparked a lot of protest in New York and Washington, and spurred many to become more politically active, leading them to ACT UP when it formed the following year.

Box Tops #

Box Tops is an ACT UP affinity group (a sub-group of 5–20 people that demonstrate together at actions).

Members: Macky Alston · Bill Neeley · Tim Whitcomb

C

Candelabras #

The Candelabras are an ACT UP affinity group lovingly and campily named in honor of Liberace.

Members: Lee Arsenault · Mark Aurigemma · Vincent Beckley · Tom Blewitt · Peter Boles · James Cascaito · Joe Cavallaro · David Crane · John Davis · David Douglas · Jeff Engel · Peter Fleming · Steven Gendin · Gary Glickman · Kay Glidden · Timothy Hazel · Jason Heffner · Scott Heron · Lewis Holman · Barbara Hughes · Eliza Jackson · Sandy Katz · Buzz Kelly · Larry Kramer · Bob LaChance · Zoe Leonard · David Leavitt · Joel Marks · James McGrath · Blane Mosley · Ann Northrop · Alan Shaw · Mark Sikorowski · Herb Spiers · Conyers Thompson · Sharon Tramutola

CD 9/18 #

CD 9/18 is an ACT UP affinity group (a sub-group of 5–20 people that demonstrate together at actions).

Members: Gedalia Braverman · Richard Hoffman · Patrick Lehman · Greg Lugliani · Shaun McDonald · Jon Nalley · Adam Rolston · Marc Rubin · Shawn Slutsky · Andy Velez

Center (Lesbians and Gay Community Services Center) #

ACT UP's weekly meetings are at the Center, a grand building in need of renovation on 13th Street in Greenwich Village dating from the 1860s. Prior to becoming the Center in 1983, it housed the Food and Maritime Trades High School.

Civil Disobedience Training #

Civil disobedience trainers teach the members of ACT UP techniques for engaging in non-violent civil disobedience. At the March 13, 1989 meeting, Amy Bauer (ACT UP's main civil disobedience trainer) will give a 10–15 minute introduction to civil disobedience training. The training is designed to convince people who plan to engage in civil disobedience to attend one of the longer pre-action trainings, and to give basic preparation to anyone who cannot attend those sessions.

Civil disobedience trainers: Amy Bauer (lead trainer) · Gregg Bordowitz · Steven Cordova · Alexis Danzig · Joe Ferrari · Mike Frisch · Jean Elizabeth Glass · John Kelly · Gerri Wells

Coordinating Committee #

The Coordinating Committee handles administrative issues that would be too cumbersome for the entire floor, and determines the agenda for Monday night meetings. It is made up of the ACT UP Administrator, Treasurer, two At-Large Members, and one representative from each committee.

Members: Dan Baker (Treasurer) · Jason Heffner (Administrator) · Victor Mendolia (Outreach) · Cary Stegall (At-large) · Ken Wiley (At-large)

D

Dada #

Dada is an ACT UP affinity group. Dada stands for Direct Anger Demands Action.

Members: David Ehrlich · Tony Davis · Jeff Wolson

Delta Queens #

Delta Queens is an ACT UP affinity group so named because it started as a group who traveled to protest at the Republican National Convention in New Orleans in summer 1988.

Members: Heidi Dorow · Avram Finkelstein · Jean Elizabeth Glass · Maria Maggenti · Costa Pappas · Steve Quester · Rollerena · Maxine Wolfe

DIVA TV #

DIVA TV is a newly-forming video collective dedicated to documenting ACT UP actions. DIVA stands for Damned Interfering Video Activists. Target City Hall will be the first major action they document. DIVA TV meets at the loft space at 60 Warren Street, 5th Floor.

Members: Bob Beck · Gregg Bordowitz · Jean Carlomusto · Matt Ebert · Rob Kurilla · Ray Navarro · Costa Pappas · George Plagianos · Catherine Saalfield · Jason Simon · Ellen Spiro

F

Floor #

The "Floor" is how people refer to all of the people at any particular ACT UP meeting. The Floor controls all of ACT UP's decisions, though some of the more administrative tasks are delegated to the Coordinating Committee. It is requested that people do not vote until their third ACT UP general meeting.

Fundraising Committee #

The Fundraising Committee works on raising money for ACT UP in large ways (like direct mail campaigns) and small ways (like selling merchandise at meetings and actions). Buttons are $5 each, t-shirts are $40 each. Cash only.

Members: Michael Aquilone · Stephen Gendin · Charles Hovland · Skip Mooney · Gabriel Rotello · Marvin Shulman · Peter Staley (chair) · Sean Strub

G

Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC) #

Formed in 1982 to provide services to the gay men in New York who were first starting to be affected by AIDS, GMHC is still one of the leading support organizations for people with AIDS. Larry Kramer was one of the original founders of GMHC, but the organization split from him as he pushed them to shift their focus to political activism. Many ACT UPers have been volunteers and clients of GMHC.

Gran Fury #

Gran Fury is a small collective of ACT UPers creating much of the graphic design for ACT UP. Gran Fury started as an open group, but became a closed, invitation-only group when having so many members proved unwieldy. Gran Fury is currently planning a kissing project: a poster campaign showing different types of couples kissing, to drive home the point that HIV is not transmissible through casual contact.

Members: Richard Elovich · Avram Finkelstein · Amy Heard · Tom Kalin · John Lindell · Loring McAlpin · Marlene McCarty · Donald Moffett · Michael Nesline · Mark Simpson · Robert Vazquez-Pacheco

H

Housing Caucus #

This group formed to advocate for housing for people with AIDS. Members tend to speak up to make sure that ACT UP actions directly address services for homeless people living with AIDS, who are underrepresented at ACT UP but constitute a large proportion of New Yorkers living with AIDS.

Members: Jack Ben-Levi · Bill Blum · Gedalia Braverman · Neil Broome · Lei Chou · Andrei Fabricant · Ira Frazin · Richard Jackman · Charles King · Dan McDonald · Doug Montgomery · George Plagianos · Sydney Pokorny · Eric Sawyer · Sarah Schulman · Ginny Shubert · Rod Sorge · Conyers Thompson · Liz Tracey · Sharon Tramutola · Doug Warn · Charles Welz · Heidi Beth Wert

L

La Cocina #

La Cocina (so named because it is the Spanish term for "The Kitchen" and the group originally started meeting in a member's kitchen) is an ACT UP affinity group.

Members: Steve Bohrer · Kim Christenson · Aldo Hernandez · Debra Levine · Rachel Lurie · Ray Navarro · Catherine Saalfield · Kathy Williams

Lavender Hill Mob #

The Lavender Hill Mob is a small group dedicated to doing direct action activism on AIDS. It formed a year or two before ACT UP. Most of its members joined ACT UP, and as ACT UP began growing and becoming effective the Lavender Hill Mob stopped operating as a separate group.

Members: Bill Bahlman · Sara Blecher · Jean Elizabeth Glass · Buddy Noro · Michael Petrelis · Marty Robinson · Henry Yeager

M

Majority Action Committee #

The Majority Action Committee advocates for ACT UP to focus on issues affecting people of color. It is called "majority action" because the majority of people affected by AIDS are people of color. Members frequently push to make sure that ACT UP literature is available in Spanish and that the people speaking on behalf of ACT UP are not just white men.

Members: Jose Fidelino · Selwyn Gallaway · Robert Garcia · Cliff Goodman · Emily Gordon · Michael Green · Constance Lofton · Blane Mosley · Ray Navarro · Marvin Palmer · Stephen Rosenbush · Earl Sherman · Emily Smith · Kendall Thomas · Robert Vazquez · Judith Walker · Michael Wiggins · Dan Williams

Media Committee #

The Media Committee is in charge of getting press coverage of ACT UP and teaching ACT UP members how to talk to — or, as Ann Northrop would say, how to talk through — the press.

Members: Jay Blotcher · Cesar Carrasco · Chip Duckett · Jim Fouratt · Ann Northrop · Monica Pearl · Bob Rafsky · Scott Robbe · Vito Russo · Michelangelo Signorile (chair) · John Voelcker · Daniel Wolfe

MHA #

MHA was a group of ACT UPers that formed to sound like a real city agency so they could get on New York City Health Commissioner Stephen Joseph's schedule. ACT UP is targeting Commissioner Joseph because they believe he is artificially keeping the estimate of New Yorkers with AIDS low to make it look like New York City is doing a better job on AIDS than it is. MHA got a meeting with him (which didn't last long once he realized they were not a real organization). Many MHA participants now are part of Surrender Dorothy.

Participants: Gregg Bordowitz · John Bowne · Neil Broome · Steve Cordova · Mike Frisch · Adam Hassuck · Rich Jackman · Ira Manhoff · SPREE (Timmy Vance) · Charles Stimson

Montreal Committee #

This committee is planning ACT UP New York's attendance and actions at the upcoming 1989 International Conference on AIDS in June. ACT UP New York is planning to send a contingent of hundreds of protesters to demand that people with AIDS be included in determining the speed and direction of research and care.

Members: Ann Otto · Alan Shaw · Herb Spiers · Cary Stegall · Henry Yeager

O

Outreach Committee #

The Outreach Committee is in charge of increasing membership and attendance at actions. They also try to welcome and orient new members at Monday night meetings. Much of their work involves wheatpasting posters around the city.

Members: Robin Crutchfield · Charlie Franchino · Vincent Gagliostro · Robert Garcia · Jeff Griglak · John Kelly · Victor Mendolia · Bill Monaghan · David Robinson · Michael Wiggins

P

Powertools #

Powertools is a sub-group of ACT UP members, led by Peter Staley, that is forming to do more audacious actions with a smaller group of people than ACT UP's large actions.

Members: Lee Arsenault · Dan Baker · Jay Blotcher · Deborah Gavito · Robert Hilferty · James McGrath · Blane Mosley · Stephen Rosenbush · Peter Staley

S

Seeing Red #

Seeing Red is an ACT UP affinity group that formed around the action Seize Control of the FDA (so named because they wore shirts with bloody handprints to stress that the federal government has blood on its hands because of inaction on AIDS). Seeing Red is on the agenda at the March 13, 1989 meeting to ask the floor for approval to use the ACT UP logo on their posters for Target City Hall.

Members: Mark Carson · David Geltman · Wayne Kawalder · Patrick Moore · Steve Nesselroth · Jeff Griglak · Lee Raines

Seize Control of the FDA #

This was ACT UP's previous major action. On October 11, 1988, ACT UP New York and a coalition of AIDS activist groups (ACT NOW) held a massive demonstration at the headquarters of the FDA in Rockville, Maryland. 1,000 people participated and 180 were arrested, demanding faster development of treatments.

Speakers Bureau / History Teach-In #

Three related ACT UP sub-groups formed to speak to outside groups about AIDS issues, teach about gay and lesbian history, and research and document lesbian and gay history as it relates to AIDS activism: the Speakers Bureau, the Gay and Lesbian Teach-In Committee, and the Lesbian and Gay Activist History Project.

Speakers Bureau: Robert Garcia · Joel Marks
Gay and Lesbian Teach-In Committee: Walter Armstrong · Mark Bronnenberg · David Deitcher · Heidi Dorow · Bru Dye · David Douglas · Peter Fleming · John Gibson · Ron Goldberg · Greg Lugliani · Maria Maggenti · John Nally · David Robinson · Polly Thistlewaite · Oliver Wadsworth · Wendy Weiss
Lesbian and Gay Activist History Project: Macky Allston · Walter Armstrong · Mark Bronnenberg · David Deitcher · Heidi Dorow · David Douglas · Peter Fleming · Ron Goldberg · Greg Lugliani · Jon Nally · Polly Thistlewaite

Surrender Dorothy #

Surrender Dorothy (taking its campy name from the warning that the Wicked Witch of the West writes in the sky in The Wizard of Oz) is a group of ACT UPers that has been protesting New York City Health Commissioner Stephen Joseph at his office and at places on his schedule. ACT UP is targeting Commissioner Joseph because they believe he is artificially keeping the estimate of New Yorkers with AIDS low.

Main participants: Ortez Alderson · Steven Cordova · Jim Eigo · Jay Funk · Mark Harrington · Adam Hassuk · Bill Monaghan · Russell Pritchard · Steve Quester · Allan Robinson · David Robinson · Timmy Vance (SPREE)

Swim Team #

The Swim Team is the unofficial name for a group of particularly close friends within ACT UP. The name was earned at a party on August 12, 1988, when several members went swimming in the fountain in Tompkins Square Park and returned to the party dripping wet. Most of the Swim Team members are not in an affinity group and are looking to join one forming for Target City Hall.

Members: Aner Candelario · Matt Ebert · Michael Goff · Todd March · Tassos Pappas · Costa Pappas · Howard Pope · David Serko · Chris Sharp · Adam Smith · Ben Thornberry · George Wittman

T

Target City Hall #

Target City Hall is the name of ACT UP's upcoming second anniversary action on March 28, 1989, protesting Mayor Ed Koch's administration's failure to deal with the issues of AIDS education, housing for HIV symptomatic homeless people, IV drug treatment, and the dangerous state of the city hospital system.

Target City Hall Principals #

These are the main people involved in planning Target City Hall.

David Barr (Legal) · Amy Bauer (Civil disobedience training) · Gregg Bordowitz · Joe Ferrari (Logistics) · Mike Frisch · Jean Elizabeth Glass (Co-chair) · Ron Goldberg (Chants) · Alan Klein (Chair) · Victor Mendolia (Outreach) · Tim Powers (Support) · Bob Rafsky · Mike Signorelli (Media) · Ken Woodard · Brian Zabcik (City Issues)

Testing the Limits #

Testing the Limits is a video collective that pre-dates ACT UP with the specific aim of documenting AIDS activism. Many of the members met at the Whitney Independent Study Program. Testing the Limits released a video in 1988 focusing mainly on ACT UP that played at festivals and is distributed among educators. All decisions within the collective, including editing, are made by consensus.

Members: Jean Carlomusto · Gregg Bordowitz · Sandra Elgear · Robin Hutt · David Meieran

Treatment and Data Committee #

Formerly the Issues Committee, the Treatment and Data Committee studies medical research and teaches ACT UP about the drug-development process so that actions can be tailored to advocate for effective treatments. Almost none of the members have medical or scientific training, but many have educated themselves to a level of expertise comparable to career scientists and doctors on AIDS medical issues.

Members: John Bohne · Michael Cowing · Jim Eigo · Richard Elovich · Jon Engbretson · Julie Fishman · Charlie Franchino · Mark Harrington · Bob Huff · David Z. Kirschenbaum · Garry Kleinman · Barry Lapidus · Iris Long · Timothy Lunceford · Jim Lyons · Margaret McCarthy · Mark Milano · Ann Otto · Rebecca Pringle · Herb Spiers

W

Wave 3 #

Wave 3 is an ACT UP affinity group that formed at one of the first ACT UP actions to implement a wave strategy for civil disobedience — instead of all affinity groups doing civil disobedience at once, groups went in waves so the action would last longer. Wave 3 was the third wave at that action and stayed together, becoming one of ACT UP's most prominent affinity groups. Kayeton Kurowski is the main organizer.

Members: Brian Damage · Richard Deagle · Pam Earing · Jim Eigo · Deborah Gavito · Mark Harrington · Jill Harris · David Z. Kirschenbaum · Kayeton Kurowski · Margaret McCarthy · Russell Pritchard · Marvin Shulman · Carl Sigmon · Ken Woodard · Scott Wald

Whitney Independent Study Program #

Many artists who took part in (and met through) this one-year program sponsored by the Whitney Museum ended up becoming involved in ACT UP.

Members who went on to join ACT UP: Gregg Bordowitz · Sandra Elgear · Robyn Hutt · Alexandra Juhasz · Tom Kalin · Ray Navarro · Catherine Saalfield · Jason Simon

Women's Caucus #

ACT UP's Women's Caucus focuses on activism around women and AIDS. They protested Cosmopolitan magazine in January 1988 after it published an article claiming women were not at risk of AIDS from sex, and held a large action at Shea Stadium in spring 1988. Members tend to speak up at ACT UP meetings to ensure that actions and communications include issues affecting women with AIDS, and to make sure that ACT UP's public voices are not exclusively white men.

Members: Marion Banzhaf · Jean Carolmusto · Cynthia Chris · Kim Christenson · Alexis Danzig · Risa Denenberg · Heidi Dorow · Alexandra Juhasz · Zoe Leonard · Debra Levine · Rachel Lurie · Maria Maggenti · Monica Pearl · Sydney Pokorny · Karen Ramspacher · Illith Rosenblum · Polly Thistlethwaite · Judith Walker · Gerri Wells · Maxine Wolfe

Z

Zaps #

Zaps are quickly-planned and quickly-executed small actions, often protesting at a public (or private) appearance of a public official. They are typically responses to recently arising issues and involve a smaller group than large actions.